A Camel-Trader’s Gift

The half-blind man has only one eye, but he weeps just the same.

—Bantu proverb

Hot beams curl ‘round horses’ flanks,
Bright arcs branded deep into fly-buzzed flesh,
And as I tread afraid a camel-trader sketches
A sign in the sand, prompting my gasp of thanks

That something human is here, something other
Than the eyes of beaten bulls, tails swatting
Seven times the pace of my slow steps over the rotten
Bones of camels hacked in an earlier feast rougher

Than you or I have ever witnessed. Glad to
Shield my eyes from the flies and the heat, I crouch
Beside him and stare below the turban at the pouch
Bulging over his unseeing eye. Inside the pouch a few

Suras of the Koran have been finely written to phrase
A reminder of his total submission to what Allah will,
To what Allah already wills – that he find his fill
Of sights and cram them into a single eye’s space.

His Arabic is harsh, and as he gestures in the sand
I politely nod as though I understand his story.
And I remember him for the respite from the worry,
From the fear of being charged, killed, unmanned

Before the many eyes, the animals’ and the men’s,
Who would despise a man unable to handle the horns
Of a crazed bull. And yet, his memory lingers more
With me for the tale he told, for I carry a sense

Of it still. I recall most what fell: tracking
Teardrops, slow-rolling dark in dusty streaks,
And how struck I was that both of his cheeks
Should shimmer cleansed, that one eye acting.